And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth."

hawthorn blossoms, which in these parts goes universally by the name of " May." How great This is the whole matter, as beautifully told was the contrast between the fresh air thus peras it is possible to imagine. The vivid, passion- fumed, and the warm, stagnant, breath-polluted ate sense of beauty which hurries us along in an atmosphere of the King's Bench! Greater still indistinct rapture-that it is which passes away, the contrast between the choky, husky voice of but other gifts follow which are abundant re- that laborious gentleman, Mr. Marryatt, quotcompense, and fitter for minds which experience ing case after case to prove that his own, or his begins to render" deep contemplative." We do client's view of some wretched squabble involvnot see, and feel, and pass away; but we pause, ing a matter of thirty-five pounds three and sixand ponder, and connect thought with thought, pence, was that which should be taken by the and thus make the beauties of nature more | Judges-greater still the contrast between his thoroughly our own than in the days of our ach- huskiness and the singing of innumerable birdsing joys and dizzy raptures. "Sometimes arising to the sky,

I heard the sky-larks sing;
Sometimes, all little birds that are,
How they seem'd to fill the earth and air
With their sweet jargoning."

These sights, sounds, and smells of the coun

It is long ago now-perhaps the year 1828that one fine day in June, Scarlett had been opening brief after brief, in case after case, taking the whole affair as easy as if he had been plucking cowslips in a meadow. Tindall was musing over piles of papers, and Taunton writing opinions on the ends of briefs, while Broug-try, which I ever loved in fine weather, soon ham twitched his nose, and made mistakes in law which were good-humoredly corrected by Mr. Justice Bayley. Why should I remain who had no certain business but to look on, and who had a gig and horse standing at Charing Cross, and an invitation in my pocket to spend the next two days near Croydon in Surrey? A certain Mr. Marryatt, and a sudden burst of sunshine, two things as unlike as possible, settled the matter. Marryatt got up to move for a new trial, and I to move off; and soon the Thames was between me and Westminster, and I was in full trot for the rising grounds of Surrey.

put all thoughts of neglected attendance upon the wisdom of the law out of my head, and I arrived in great spirits at my friend's house. It was a sort of place that one sees only in England. It was not extensive, not magnificentnot so picturesque, perhaps, as one often falls in with in Ireland or Scotland-no dashing, sparkling stream, no view of mountains in the distance. But all that art and elegant taste could do within a limited space to make house and grounds delightful was here done. All that expense, combined with nice judiciousness, and scrupulous neatness could effect, was here effected. The lawn as smooth as a table covered with green velvet-the shrubs grouped with careful attention both to combination and contrast; the flower-beds trimmed of every leaf and stalk that was past its prime, and exhibiting only what was in perfect flower, or about to become so. The walks of shining gravel, without an intruding weed or even a particle of unseemly dust. The windows of the sitting-rooms, opening upon the garden, led by a few steps to beds of mignionette and heliotrope, which cast up their fragrance into the apartments, where were gathered all the luxuries of furniture and table ornaments-books, pictures, vases, and ornaments in china and alabaster, carved wood, and buhl.

Brixton hill is not an ugly place, though people who do not know it associate it with the ideas of snug citizen's boxes along a dusty road, and with a treadmill which is kept in the vicinity for the benefit of the London vagabonds, who "snap up unconsidered trifles" on the south of the Thames. Then you come to Streatham, along a fine road, commanding a magnificent view to the right of "woods, and lawns, and palaces," stretching away to Kew, and Wimbledon, and Richmond. Streatham itself is a nice clean country-looking place, and was more rural-looking then than now, for the graceful Wooden spire that rose so picturesquely against its back-ground of trees has been burned down by lightning, and they have built a more sternlooking stone one in its place. A beautiful I found in the drawing-room the prettiest country lies to the left, as one dashes down the young lady in the world, who was quite a stranslope from Streatham towards Croydon, and ger to me. She was good enough, however, to now we are upon the broad Brighton road, as say that she had expected me, and had staid at smooth as a bowling-green, and dry as a car- home to write letters and receive me, while our pet, then perpetually travelled over by Brigh-friends, the owners of the house, were gone out ton coaches; but now a comparative solitude, for the multitude prefer the raiload, with all its noise, its steam, and its close carriages. This is all very well in a day of pelting rain or snow, or any day when a saving of two hours in a journey of fifty odd miles is a matter of importance; but give me the open road and the fresh air from the fields in fine weather, without accompaniment of smoke, or steam, or noise. I can remember that day even now, how sweetly blew the western breeze over bean-fields and clover, and how delicious were the odors wafted from the meadows where hay-making was already in progress, and from the hedges, still white with

a visiting. To say the truth, I did not care how long they staid, having left so agreeable a person to do the honors. Bright, blue, and beautiful were her eyes, and fair and silken were her tresses, and never were red and white more charmingly commingled than in her brilliant complexion. She had a mouth shaped like Cupid's bow, and teeth of ivory. But what was more fascinating than all these-for to be alone with a dull beauty is a dull business-she talked well, and with the utmost vivacity about every thing in the world that one ventures to talk about with women. We discussed, in the most admirable manner, every thing about the weath

"One would think so," replied my friend, "but you saw no particular signs of happiness about him, he dined with us to-day."

er, and gardening, and rural affairs in general-hatred of the unknown person to whom this about Waverly, and Woodstock, and Walter beautiful young lady was to be married. Scott, then writing away, with undaunted "He must be a happy man," I said, “who vigor, at his life of Napoleon-about the pic-has won so fair a lady-love." tures at the Royal Academy Exhibition, and fifteen other exhibitions-about the opera, and Sontag, and Donzelli, and Curioni, and the rest of them who then were in vogue; and my young lady seemed as much pleased with my criticisms as 1 was with hers, and without any familiarity that was unbecoming, treated me as if I were an old acquaintance. She was easily prevailed upon to put on her bonnet, in which, of course, she looked even prettier than without it, and walk through the grounds with me. Never was a June day so delightul: the flowers bloomed more charmingly, and smelled more deliciously than usual, and the birds sang with unwonted sweetness.

What was my surprise and disgust to find that the bottle-shaped, much-talking young man, was the affianced futur of this charming creature. What could she see in him? How could she have any affection for a man who ate so much? Soup, salmon, mutton, fowl, tongue, besides an infinity of potatoes, cauliflowers, asparagus, and early peas! How could any but a monster do such havoc upon gross victuals in the very presence of the creature he loved, and such a creature! He did not love it was clear. He was incapable of any tenderness or delicacy of sentiment.

As dinner hour approached, my friends came home, and then more company, and we dined. Very likely he was, but he was the second son I had not the felicity of leading my new acquain- of an exceedingly rich London merchant. He tance out to dinner, but I sat opposite, which had been to Cambridge University. He had was agreeable. We had excellent cheer, ele- taken his degree with some honor, and his gantly served, and we took our cool claret in friends said he would have been among the moderation, according to the English fashion. wranglers, had not the answering of his year I liked all the dining folk very well save one, a been unusually good. His father and all his unyoung man, tall and bottle-shaped, that is, of cles and aunts looked upon him as the eighth long neck, with narrow shoulders, and a frame wonder of the world, and thought that, barring which widened as it descended. He talked the highest order of nobility, any woman in Engmuch, and, as it seemed to me, with an authori- land would scarcely be good enough for him. tative air, as if he had been accustomed to regard His father had just bought an estate to which a himself as a Sir Oracle, and he exhibited sur- valuable living was attached, and the gentleman prising powers of appetite. After we got back was forthwith to be ordained, presented to this to the drawing-room, my young lady talked as living, and married to the charming young lady well as ever, and sang most delightfully to her I had seen, whose beauty and cleverness of conown harp accompaniment. I thought I could versation had attracted his attention when visithave looked and listened forever. We petition-ing at my friend's house. It was much doubted, ed against candles being brought in, on account I believe, whether the lady cared two straws for of the heat; but partly the twilight, and partly the gentleman, but she could learn to care for the lovely light of a summer moon, shining from him, and it was not in the nature of things to be a cloudless sky, poured its soft radiance into the indifferent to the prospect of eight thousand a room, and this, with the smell of flowers, the year eventually, and two thousand a year to becharming sounds of song and stringed music, gin with. And there was nothing against the and the beauty and gracefulness of the perform-young man. On the contrary, he had always er, made up a whole of extreme deliciousness. At last, the company went away and my young lady retired, and I was left alone with mine host and hostess. It was time to go to bed, if that time can be said ever to come on a lovely night in June; but of course I could not refuse myself the delight of talking about the young lady who had just vanished. I mentioned how much I was indebted for her reception of me.

"I had forgotten," said Mrs. thought you knew my cousin. Surely you have met her betore with us."

been very steady, and had a mind to comprehend mathematics. The whole matter, therefore, was soon arranged. All this I gathered in about ten minutes talk with my friends while the bed-room candles were bringing in.

I would willingly have ordered my gig, even at that late hour, and have driven back to town, but it would have seemed ridiculous. I told some story, however, of business to be attended to in "I Westminster next morning, and arranged to leave before breakfast. I believe the morning was as fine a one as ever came, but I do not think I took much notice of its beauties as I drove rapidly back along the road which I had so much enjoyed the day before. When eleven o'clock came, I found myself again amid the hum, and squeezing, and professional jokes of the third row in the Court of King's Bench. To this day, I sometimes heave a half sigh as I pass through the country to the west of Croydon. The fair fiancée of by-gone days is now a fine woman, inclined to be fat, and the mother of seven promising children.

"No," said I, with earnestness; "she is not one of those that one may see, and then forget that one has seen-how very charming she is!" "She is, indeed, a very charming girl," said Mr. "and a very good girl too, which is better; but I give you warning, my young gentleman, that you must not fall in love with her, for she is engaged to be married."

I felt as if my friend had given me a blow on the left side of the chest; however I soon recovered, and began to indulge myself in very fierce

CHARLES GLIB has one peculiarity that distingishes him from every other bustling chattering inhabitant of this blabbing world. In the course of a pretty long life he has never been known to reveal a single secret -for nobody ever trusted him with one. He is the very opposite of that celebrated lover of taciturnity, who having walked twenty miles with an equally silent companion, not a syllable having escaped the =lips of either, exclaimed, in acknowledgment of his friend's observation, on arriving at a cross-road, that the left would be the best path to take,

"What a talkative fellow you are!"

Glib is, to an equal degree, a lover of loquacity. The sound of his own voice is to him the music of the spheres. Other people have their fits of sullenness and reserve he never has. Other people pause to take breath, which he never does. Other people like to chatter away only on their favorite themes-their own rheumatics, or their neighbor's extravagance-but no topic ever came amiss to Charley Glib. He never sinks into taciturnity, merely because he happens to have exhausted all the scandal of the neighborhood, and trumpeted his own perfections of mind and body in fifty different keys. Such silence is simply the natural consequence of over-talking to which ordinary folks are liable; but, as for Glib, he still goes on, still finds something to say, even when he has torn his grandmother's reputation to tatters, and related the history, with all the minutest particulars, of his last cold in the head. While there are words to be uttered, a subject is never wanting. The words bring the thoughts, or he talks without them. He is nothing if not loquacious-he associates death with silence. To talk is to enjoy ;-the original bird of paradise was, in his judgment, the Talking bird, and should be so described by every ornithologist.

As there is good in every thing, there is convenience in this clack, for it puts us on our guard, and warns us to keep our secrets to ourselves. One would as soon think of pouring wine into a sieve, as of intrusting precious tidings to his keeping. Whatever is published at Charing-cross, or advertised in the morning papers, there can be no harm in communicating to Glib; but for more confidential character,

VOL. II. No. III. 27

it would be just as wise to whisper it to the four winds of heaven.

A secret indeed is a pearl which it were egregious folly to cast before such an animal. Secrets are utterly wasted upon your great, loud, constant, unthinking talkers. They are delicacies never truly relished by people of large appetites for speech, who can utter any thing, and who fare sumptuously on immense heaps of stale news of the coarsest nature. Their palates are vitiated by vast indulgence, and their ravenous hunger after the joys of holding forth, forbids the possibility of a keen fine taste, the nice and exquisite relish of an original secret. If they can but relate to you something particularly well known about Martin Luther or Queen Elizabeth, provided there is enough of it to ensure them a full meal, they are as contented and as happy as though they had a hundred dainty little secrets to disclose, every one of them profound, startling, and hitherto close kept. Yorick gave the ass a macaroon, but we do not find that the experiment succeeded much-the beast would no doubt have preferred thistles.

No, no; a secret is delicious food for the man of a sly, quiet, seemingly reserved turn of mind, who does not talk much, but speaks to the purpose; who has no overweening fondness for the sound of his own voice, but who fervently loves a breach of confidence; who feels that pleasures are a thousand times sweeter for being stolen ; and who, while quietly disclosing some important and interesting fact of which, with many injunctions to keep it ever under lock and key, he had been the depository, is not only sensible of a relief in freeing the mind from its secret burden, but conscious of a superadded charm, the pleasure of betraying a verbal trust.

Just such a man is he who now passes my window, Peter Still. He is well-known to half the town, although his voice was never heard by any two people in it at the same time. He has whispered in the ears of a vast mob, taking each individual separately; and he has made a large portion of London his especial confidant, by catching the people who compose it, each by his button, at some season or other, and committing a precious secret exclusively to his

care.

Every one of that great talking multitude looks upon himself as the sole-selected sharer of the secrets which Peter Still once held solitary in his own bosom; and each is furthermore convinced, that for caution, closeness, trustworthiness-the power of

keeping a thing entirely to himself until the l proper moment arrives for discreetly whispering it to a valued friend-Peter Still has not his fellow either in the parish of St. Giles or of St. James-nor in any parish between the celebrated two which mark the wide extremes of the metropolis.

Nobody would suppose that beneath his most placid, passionless demeanor, an agony of curiosity was raging—that amidst so much dignified composure, he was actually dying to hear your story; as little could it be imagined when he presses your hand at parting, with your solemn secret locked up in his soul, never to be revealed even in a whisper to himself, that he is dying to disclose it to the first babbler he may meet.

"Well, I declare, this meeting is fortu

And to look at Peter, to observe his manner, to hear him talk, you would decide that all the town was individually right-however the mob of confidants, on comparing But although like Hamlet's, his heart their means of judging one with the other, would break if he were condemned to hold might collectively pronounce a different his tongue-although he must unfold the verdict. His appearance begets an impres- delicious but intolerable mystery, the faithsion that the rack would have no power to ful keeping of which would drive him unseal his lips, and wring from him the im- mad-yet he never falls to a rash promisportant secret you had confided to him cuous chattering upon the subject-he is some time before-how Miss Jane in her not open-mouthed when he meets youvexation had written a smart copy of verses he never volunteers the prohibited stateon Mr. Wimple's nuptials-or how your ment without a why or wherefore. The wife had promised to favor you with a ninth breach is never effected in this way— heir to your books and teaspoons. No, these deep and awful secrets, once whis-nate. You must know I called at the Cotpered in that close man's ear, must, you tage yesterday, and there I heard no, I would swear, lie buried there for ever. never was so astonished! Our friend, the Though faithful to the Catholic church, he farmer, told me of it in the strictest confi would die unshriven rather than confess dence-the very strictest-such a secret!" them to his priest-so say appearances. "Did he? What is it?" And yet, really and truly, when you have published the two events alluded to in the close ear of Peter Still, you may as well, as far as publicity is concerned, send the verses on Mr. W.'s nuptials to be printed, addressed to the Editor of the New Monthly; and having the pen still at your finger's end-draw up the form of an advertisement, in readiness, to appear hereafter properly filled up among the births in the morning paper

"On the th instant, in the lady of, of a

Peter Still's various powers commence with the faculty of attracting people to confide in him. You look in his face, and unbosom. His seems no sieve-like nature, and to it you intrust your most delicate secrets, convinced that they will never run through. He never asks for your confidence he never seeks to worm himself into your faith and esteem-but he quietly wins you to speak out, and communicate to him what was only known to yourself.

If you hesitate, and say, "Perhaps, after all, the matter had better never be mentioned no, not even to you!" he calmly agrees, and advises you to confine the secret to your own breast, where it is sure to be safe; well knowing that a man who meditates the disclosure of a secret can have no spur like a dissuader, and that he will immediately after tell you every word.

"Why then you must know—"

And out comes all the story-not with many additions, perhaps, on this occasion, as it is only one day old.

This is the common style of the common world; where the " What is it?" as naturally follows the mention of a secret told in the strictest confidence, as extensive publi city follows the first dishonorable disclosure. But this is not the style of Peter Still. He never loses sight of form and ce remony-never enlightens an inquirer on such easy terms. Though more anxious to tell you than you can be to hear, he dal lies and procrastinates. Though burning to accomplish the revelation, he seems ice. He compresses his lips, and drops his eyelids-shakes his head very slowly, and is tremendously emphatic with his forefinger, which always seems to point a moral when he is most violating morality.

up.

De

At last, when the mixture of mysterious signs, unintelligible sounds, and stray syl lables, are duly mingled, the charm begins to work, and the secret bubbles pend upon it, he makes much of it. His secrets are secrets. Impressed and edified you cannot fail to be, whatever may be the disclosure. Perhaps it may be a thing of very trifling import-that Q. is going to give up his town-house-that X., unknown to X.'s wife, has a nice little flaxen-haired boy at school near Turnham Green-that

Z., or some other letter of the social alphabet, intends to pay his debts; no matter for the intelligence, it oozes from Peter Still as though it were

dear as the ruddy drops That visit his sad heart.

Who could possibly suppose that such an impersonation of the prudential and the discreet as Peter seems-a creature so calm, close, cautious-so thoroughly safe, so every-way to be relied on-was as hollow as a fife, which cannot be intrusted with a little of one's breath without speaking. The secret which we cannot confide to the talkative, we often repose with greater peril in the reserved.

Every word is a nail driven into your memory to fasten the fact there; and although he had only told you in his impressive way, and with a painful sense of moral responsibility, that two sheriffs will certainly be chosen in Guildhall next year, yet you are satisfied for a time that he has sur-tended for the public ear; but Peter Still rendered a secret worth knowing.

But whatever he may choose to reveal, he is sure to leave you with the impression-this is invariable-that he has concealed more than he has discovered. Hav. ing told all, and a little besides, he stops short-and desires you to excuse him. When perchance he has related in all its particulars the very secret that you could have told him, and when he has found this out, he makes a sudden pause, puts on a much-meaning look, and regrets that the rest is incommunicable-a something which he dares not disclose.

And above all, does Peter Still preserve the spirit of secrecy, in constantly enjoining, with a solemnity befitting his character, every erring mortal, in whose ear he whispers a bit of forbidden news, never for his life to divulge it. What he has acquired gravely and anxiously, he never parts with lightly. He may tell the secret to fifty persons in a day-but then he tells it only to the discreet and each one registers the vow of secrecy before he is intrusted with the treasure; so that when Peter has informed five hundred, he feels that he has informed but one.

Charley Glib walks and chatters about town, labelled "Dangerous," to warn off every unwary whisperer of tidings not in

appears, of all vehicles for the carrying of secrets, the "patent safety," and we intrust life and limb to him. With Loquacity we run no risk-with Reserve we are ruined. Confiding in Glib, we know that we cast our secret upon the stream, and it is borne away upon the first flowing tide of words into the wide ocean of babble, where it is lost in an overwhelming din which nobody listens to; confiding in Peter Still, we equally cast our secret upon the stream, whence it is conveyed through innumerable water-pipes, intersecting every quarter of the town, and is laid on at every house.

The most sly and circumspect betrayer of confidence is liable to make mistakes. The liar needs a good memory, so does the secret-monger who tells truth when he should not. One of the greatest calamities to which he is liable, is a confusion of persons, arising out of a multiplicity of confidences, which is very apt to bring him round with his profound secret, after he has travelled over the whole town to tell it, to the source whence he originally derived it-and to lead him into the fatal blunder of retailing it confidentially to the very man who had first in confidence retailed it to him.

It was by such a blunder of memory that I first found out Peter Still-first discovered that although he seemed "close as oak," he was in reality porous all over ;incapable of retaining a private fact, even though it should happen to be that he himself was Mrs. Brownrigg's grandson.

No man was ever more sincere than Peter Still is, in delivering these injunctions and admonitions. When he beseeches you not to tell again-when he implores you to keep a Chubb's patent on your lips-be sure that he is in earnest ;-for a secret diffused all over the town is a secret gone, and when every body can reveal it to every body else, why it follows that there is nobody left for him to betray it to exclusively. He accepts a secret as he accepts a bill of exchange, deeming it of greatest use when put into circulation; but he does not wish it to go quite out of date, before he says, "Don't let it go any further." He is like those poets who print their verses "By the way," he remarked to me three to circulate amongst friends-who pub-weeks afterwards, "as we are talking of lish privately; so Peter publishes his se- friend Hectic, I may whisper to you confidentially" (and here his voice took an in

crets.

"It must go no further," said I to him innocently one day; "but since you are speaking with such interest of our friend the Rev. Mr. Hectic, I must tell you—and to you only shall I mention it, in strict confidence-that he is now very decidedly imbued with Puseyite opinions."